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Rob Fenn

Head of Human Rights and Democracy Department, FCO

Part of FCDO Human Rights

11th September 2012 London, UK

The Brunei Blogosphere: Kingdom of Unexpected Treasures

I read somewhere that Brunei Darussalam was the most “Facebooked” country in the world, on a per capita basis. Whether or not that’s true, Brunei’s extraordinary levels of literacy (94.9%, among the highest in the world), and online of freedom of expression, combine to make “virtual Brunei” a dynamic and fascinating place.

With a population of only 400,000, many of whom one can meet at The Mall on a Saturday afternoon, it is possible to get to know personally netizens whom, in other countries, one might only be able to interact with online. On this first hand (First Life?) evidence, Brunei is creating something rare: an internet-savvy population which displays as much courtesy at the keyboard as it does in the “real world”. That contrasts starkly with some of the online bullying (and worse) which one reads about elsewhere.

That was certainly what William Hague found, when he visited Brunei for the EU / ASEAN Foreign Ministers’ Meeting in April. The Foreign Secretary asked to meet some of Brunei’s best known bloggers, which we managed to arrange (Read the blogger’s accounts: Delwin Keasberry’s ‘Who is William Hague?‘ and @emmagoodegg’s ‘@williamjhague: Selamat Pagi Brunei’)  just before he dived into the conference. William Hague stayed in touch with virtual Brunei in a series of tweets throughout that busy day:

I have since contributed guest blogs to all three of the prominent bloggers whom we invited to meet the Foreign Secretary.

  • With “Emma Goodegg”, I explored the nostalgia we had both felt when judging a film competition about student life in the UK: “Is university wasted on the young?” [Please check back later for the link]

The knowledge economy is like a river, and in Brunei it rises here.

About Rob Fenn

Rob Fenn has been Head of the FCO’s Human Rights and Democracy Department since March 2014. His last formal responsibility for human rights was in the mid 1990s, when he…

Rob Fenn has been Head of the FCO’s Human Rights and Democracy Department
since March 2014. His last formal responsibility for human rights was in
the mid 1990s, when he served as UK Delegate on the Third Committee of
the General Assembly in New York (with annual excursions to what was
then the Commission on Human Rights in Geneva). Recent celebrations of
the twentieth anniversary of the creation of the post of UN High
Commissioner for Human Rights – a resolution he helped pilot through the
GA – came a shock. The intervening 20 years have flown: in Rome
(EU/Economics), in London (Southern European Department), in Nicosia
(Deputy High Commissioner) and latterly in Bandar Seri Begawan.
Rob,
Julia and their two sons loved Brunei, where British High Commissioners
are made especially welcome. The family’s activities included regular
walks in the pristine rainforest, expeditions upriver to help conserve
the Sultanate’s stunning biodiversity, and home movie making (in Brunei
it is almost impossible to take a bad photograph).
After
all those saturated colours, Rob worried that the move back to Britain
might feel like a shift into black and white. But the reunion with
family, friends and colleagues, and the boys’ brave reintegration into a
North London school, have been ample compensation. Julia’s main regret
is that, now she walks on Hampstead Heath, she no longer has an excuse
to carry a machete (“parang”).
Rob’s
problem is summed up in two types of reaction from friends outside the
office. On hearing that he is “in charge of human rights and democracy
at the FCO”, some think it sounds like a vast job: what else is there?
Others think it sounds wishy-washy: not in the national interest. Rob’s
mission is to take the Foreign Secretary’s dictum that “our values are
our interests”, and help his colleagues translate it into action in a
world so varied it can contain both Brunei’s clouded leopard and the
civil war in Syria.

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